


"I told you so."

by AuthorinExile



Series: Fictober 2020 [11]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Background Sten (Dragon Age), Crushes, Despite appearances, F/M, Gambling, Gen, Queerplatonic Relationships, Romantic Comedy, Secret Crush, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Warden Tabris (Dragon Age), Zevran Arainai being Zevran Arainai, Zevran Arainai is a Good Friend, betting on your friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 05:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30016929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorinExile/pseuds/AuthorinExile
Summary: Zevran and Leliana are gambling fiends, and they like to make bets on their friends' antics. Specifically, their love lives.Or: The events of "Unacceptable. Try again." from the perspective of everyone's favorite assassin and bard.
Relationships: Alistair/Female Tabris (Dragon Age), Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Alistair/Tabris (Dragon Age), Alistair/Warden (Dragon Age), Sten/Female Tabris (Dragon Age), Sten/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Sten/Tabris (Dragon Age), Sten/Warden (Dragon Age)
Series: Fictober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2147928
Kudos: 1





	"I told you so."

“See? ‘Kadan.’ I  _ told _ you so,” Leliana declares triumphantly.

“Pfft,” Zevran replies eloquently. “She doesn't even know what the word means. It doesn’t count.”

“Maybe she doesn’t, but  _ he _ does. And look, there. See the way her face melts when he says it?”

Leliana points across the camp where, sure enough, Tabris’ face has softened considerably.

“It’s so romantic,” Leliana finishes with a soft sigh.

Zevran summons all of his maturity and presses his palm against his mouth to make the loudest, wettest fart noise he can manage. Leliana squawks indignantly.

“Horseshit,” Zevran says. “There’s nothing romantic about calling someone something they don’t understand.”

“Oh, yes there is, when it’s an expression of love!”

Zevran responds with a smirk and a rapid-fire string of Antivan.

“Did that inspire any romantic  _ urgings _ on your part?”

“No, you arse, because I  _ speak _ Antivan! And I certainly do not have a-- Th-That thing you said!”

Zevran snickers, and Leliana shoves his shoulder brutally. He barely sways.

“Oh, calm yourself, Sister. In fact, calm yourself and look over there.”

Zevran gently grabs her chin and directs Leliana’s gaze toward Alistair, who would tell anyone who asked that he  _ isn’t _ pouting despite the clear evidence to the contrary.

“ _ That _ is a man in love.”

“But he looks miserable,” Leliana mumbles, muffled slightly by the squish of Zevran’s grip on her cheeks.

“Exactly! No, I’m serious, don’t look at me like that. See how his gaze follows our darling Tabris wherever she goes? See how he pines?”

“It doesn’t look like pining,” she says, finally freeing herself from Zevran’s grasp. She massages the feeling of his fingers out of her cheek and says, “In fact, it looks like pouting.”

“Yes! It  _ is _ pouting! That, my dear, is the pouting of a man watching his beloved dance with another.”

“Tabris and Sten aren’t dancing. They’re sparring.”

“Leliana, darling, they are one and the same. Hell, they’re both warriors who fight with the same type of weapon and armor, even. They might as well be fucking in the middle of camp.”

“Tch, don’t be crude,” Leliana says. She also perks up and begins paying closer attention to the duo’s movements.

“And  _ Alistair _ ,” Zevran continues before she can use his statement against him, “is  _ jealous _ .”

Leliana looks back and forth between Alistair and Sten quickly. To her dismay, their expressions really do seem to be inverses of each other. Sten is as cheerful as… Well, Sten’s as cheerful as Sten ever gets, but Alistair looks gutted.

Tabris, of course, is utterly ignorant of each man’s apparent infatuation with her. She is laughing happily at Da’Fen, who has placed himself between her and Sten and is barking protectively.

“Alright,” Leliana concedes, “so he’s in love with her. So what? The bet’s about which of them is  _ courting _ her. He hasn’t even said anything.”

“Ah, but neither has Sten.”

“He calls her ‘kadan’!”

“He hasn’t explained what it means!”

“Alright, but--! But at least he’s--!”

Zevran’s smug smirk only grows as she flounders.

“Oh, I  _ hate _ you!”

“Then just watch this,” Zevran mutters darkly and approaches Alistair.

“Enjoying the view?”

Later, when Alistair has been manhandled by Tabris into taking a headache draught and Zevran has a black eye and an  _ incredibly _ smug grin, he sits beside Leliana at the fire and says, “I told you so.”

Leliana’s eye is drawn across the fire to Tabris, who sits practically in Alistair’s lap as she wipes the mud Zevran had used to defend himself from Alistair’s cheek with a damp cloth. Alistair is babbling, cheeks entirely too red to be caused solely by the night’s chill, and the look on Tabris’ face speaks volumes. It is a soft, gentle look that holds the patience of mountains in its depths.

It is the same look Alistair wears whenever he looks at Tabris.

“Yes,” Leliana agrees as she presses coin into Zevran’s eager palm, “I suppose you did.”

**Author's Note:**

> I headcanon Sten/Warden as being queerplatonic, and I'll fight you for it.


End file.
